Fluxion Biosciences - Applications (Cellular Biology, Microbiology, Ephys)

Applications

Biofilms

All bateria occupy natural niches in which they proliferate. Often organisms are studied in broth cultures but this is not how they exist in outside the lab. Many organisms of both medical and environmental interest exist in biofilms. Some organisms that can be isolated from the enviroment present a concern as opportunistic pathogens which grow as biofilms in wounds. Likewise, the bacteria that make up the normal flora of the oral cavity have complex relationships within biofilms that ultimately contribute to pathogenesis in the oral cavity as well as in other organs of the body. In order to study such important relationships among bacteria, it is necessary to inoculate and culture the organisms under shear flow.

The BioFlux system for growth of biofilms offers the following advantages:

Low media or reagent use, mL volumes rather than L
Capability of growing the biofilm under continual re-seeding conditions or initial seeding conditions only
Use of flow to stimulate bacteria to switch from planktonic to biofilm mode
Continuous fresh medium perfusion
Ability to establish complex biofilms of more than one organism
High content imaging from phase contrast to confocal
Bacteria and fungi can be grown
Controlled environment including temperature and gas options

	Pseudomonas fluorescens grown under shear flow. Bacteria were grown for 24 hours at 2 dyn/cm² shear stress and stained with syto9.

	24-hour old P. fluorescens biofilm grown under shear flow in the BIoFlux system. Swept Field confocal Z-stack of image slices (each slice is 1.5 µm) from top to bottom of the microfluidic channel (captured at the Nikon Center, UCSF). Biofilm was stained with Syto9 (green) and propridium iodide (red).

More information can be found in our Microbiology Application Notes.